The Sussex Schools' Junior girls squad excelled themselves in the annual South East Schools Inter-county match at Basingstoke on Saturday despite travel problems.
Road conditions around Chobham on the A3 were so bad in the scorching sun that the Team Coach arrived more than an hour later than planned and some athletes, who came direct, got out of their cars and went straight to the start line while several did not make it in time.
The Annual match again against, Hampshire, Surrey and Kent is always a tough one for Sussex but the junior girls were inspired and finished second to Hampshire though overall the Sussex team finished in fourth place.
A misplaced flight of hurdles in the Inter boys 100m event sent several runners flying including Sussex star Alex Clayton and he was taken to hospital with a suspected broken ankle, which proved only to be a severe stain. This however is likely to put paid to his athletics for a while.
Just to make the meeting more memorable a local resident came and sat in the middle of the home straight in protest at local parking arrangements and remained there until an off duty policeman who had come with one of the teams eventually arrested her. If this was not enough there was a complete lack of shade for the athletes in addition to this season's ever present high winds.
It was definitely one of the more interesting matches that team manager Judy Lasis had attended.
Several athletes managed to get the Schools standards for which they had been searching and some even recorded personal bests.
Four junior girls won their events and two junior boys while both the Intermediate groups also produced a couple of individual winners though some of the more impressive performances on the day came in minor places.
View all the results HERE.
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